Concussed
by Odin.Oddly
Summary: Post episode to 'Hawkeye'. BJ/Hawk friendship, possible later slash.
1. Chapter 1

"Pierce, you look awful!" Margaret's cry is a sound for sore ears, though not necessarily a pleasant one. The jeep Radar drove me home in had barely stopped before Margaret was pulling me out of the jeep, and swimming before my eyes. 'Course, it's hard to tell where anything ends when it's all the same color and texture.

"Margaret, would you hold still?" She's spinning in rapid circles around my head, an I'm pretty sure I groped her… accidentally of course… as I fumbled to get out of the wobbling jeep. I must look truly terrible if she didn't even call me on it.

"Hawk?" another voice, deeper meets my ears, and the baritone is a salve on my abused ears. No offense to Margaret, but the high feminine voice, while great for a sore anything else, just sounds shrill against the pounding behind my eyes, between my ears, the back of my cranium, and… well, it just sounds shrill against the pounding of everything above my clavicle.

"Beej!" I smile at him, feeling more than a little woozy, but glad to see something other than green. I've always been fond of BJ's blue bathrobe. I wonder absently if his wife picked it out.

"What the heck happened to you? " he was helping me stand now. Strong sure hands lifting me easily. I am not a small man, but BJ is a giant among men and had always beaten me in arm wrestling matches.

Radar is dancing around anxiously in the background, wishing to help but not knowing how. "He, uh, crashed his jeep and knocked his head loose." Radar was obviously sheepish about criticizing me, even if it was something so widely renown as my poor driving skills. I idly recalled the time I'd come back from Tokyo a day early and Henry had known I was coming by the dust cloud that my tires had left behind me.

"Ah, now the dazed expression makes sense." BJ was smiling, but worried as he wrapped an arm under my shoulders. "See, I was confused, happy hour isn't for another ten minutes." They were dragging me toward pre-op.

I knew I would be fine from here, so I closed my eyes and surrendered to the unconsciousness I'd been fighting since my tumble from that army jeep.

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For a moment, I actually thought I was back at Androscoggin after a particularly enthusiastic binge. There was once when I woke up the next day slumped over the skeleton in the anatomy department wearing my lab coat , and nothing else. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was, and that the state of my crania was in no way voluntary. Strangely enough, it was the lack of stale alcohol on my breath that brought the previous day's events trickling back into my mind. I sometimes wonder just how much of my college education was learned, and how much was imbibed…

"Beej?" I whispered, before holding my head with both hands and cursing myself for thinking that making noise was a good idea.

"Heya, Hawk."

"How's the prognosis?" I was smiling. I knew, if there was any brain damage, it would have manifested by now. I just wouldn't have woken up from my concussion.

"Well, I think you'll be just fine, even if all I did was hit you in the head with an Axe."* I could hear the smile in his voice too, and I could just imagine it on his face. I'd decided I wouldn't open my eyes with this sort of headache. Talking was unbearable enough. If I opened my eyes, I might have to see Frank, and that would be unbearable. Of course, hearing him wouldn't be much better.

I paused, and he interpreted my silence correctly, answering the question I hadn't asked. "We didn't' have the equipment to give your skull proper drainage, and we were worried about the pressure in your skull damaging your brain. So, I took a chisel and a hammer, and punched a hole in your skull to relieve the pressure. Once the pressure was gone, you stabilized on your own."

"You fibber…. You were just trying to get back at me for stealing your socks." his chuckle was warm, but just a bit frantic. I recognized the signs in him - he had been worried I wouldn't' make it, and now that I was going to be alright there was too much emotion to fully hold in. I'd seen him go through it many times, just as he'd seen me. Every time a touch-and-go patient made it through unscathed, the swamp gin would taste sweeter, the mess tent food almost palatable, and the …. Well, I best leave it at that.

I trust BJ with my life, but who could resist searching for the hole someone had punched into their head? My questing fingers found a warm pair of hands and held tight. I could do self exploration later, not that I was likely to feel much with the thick bandage wrapped around my scalp. "How long was I out?

"Only 12 hours."

"You're off shift."

I feel BJ tensing at my pronouncement. I feel no need to clarify further, he caught my meaning. He sat by my bed the entire time, probably had to go back to work soon, and would be doing so on no sleep. I smiled and squeezed his palm. "Thanks." I could feel him relax.

"So, when does Colonel Potter say I can move back into the Swamp?" I did a mental check of my faculties, shocked at just how sore I was, but I didn't feel anything more major damage. I gave a brief yawn, and BJ rubbed his thumb across my wrist.

"I'll ask him next time I see him." He gave my hand a squeeze, then rose to his feet, tucking my arms beside my under my blanked and pulling the woolen cloth up over my shoulders, like I usually sleep. "You just get some rest."

"Okay… but next time, just yell at me when I steal your socks, okay?" I heard him chuckle as I drifted off. My eyes hadn't opened, so the slip into somnolence was a quick and quiet one. One moment awake, the next, darkness.

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*Almost a direct quote from Duke Forrest in M*A*S*H: a story of three army doctors. Sameish situation, I just took liberties with the characters and timeline. The reference to the cloud of dust was also a book reference.


	2. Chapter 2

_ 'I've never been so fond of Olive drab and poor lighting,' _I think as my eyes creak open like the gates of a mausoleum; excruciatingly loud in the silence, and horrifically ominous. This time, instead of the mustachioed visage of my best friend, I'm greeted by the 4077th's resident bombshell sitting at my bedside.

"Guess I didn't mess up as much as I'd intended. Tell Father Mulcahy I want a refund." My voice is raspy with sleep, and my throat dry with dust. Margaret looks confused as she pours me a glass of water. "I died and woke up in purgatory. I expected a one way ticket to hell! I planned my acceptance speech and everything."

She cracks a smile and gives a chuckle as she tilts the cool water to my lips. "Purgatory, Pierce?"

I smile and leer. "I've got a beautiful woman at my beck-and-call, but no privacy."

"Hawk! You're awake!" Beej is exuberant as he approaches my hospital bed.

"Ready for playoffs coach." I snap a mock salute.

"In a few days, once your head is finished healing, champ." BJ is checking my chart, but smiling. "Your stats are way up, kid. Keep up the good work and we can trade you to the dodgers."

"But coach, I play football. I don't know how to play baseball." I vaguely recall telling BJ about my college ball days as receiver for Androscoggin.

"Read up! Got anything else to do while you're lying in bed all day?" I know Beej caught the twinkle in my eye and set me up intentionally. Nothing like a friend who really _gets_ you.

"Depends. Margaret, you busy?" My lecherous grin is hampered slightly by the inch thick layer of plaster and gauze surrounding my skull, but the faint dusting of pink over her cheeks proves I've still got it.

She scowls. "Oh, go suck an egg," and bustles off to check charts and fluff pillows. It's endearing how hard she's ignoring us right now.

I contemplate feeling guilty for a moment or two, but decide against it. I realize suddenly that she wanted a 'moment.' After the time we'd been in this hellhole together, I did feel she deserved one; however, 'moments,' tend to make me uncomfortable. That's one of the many reasons I value Beej so much - he's one of the few people capable of having complete conversations without saying a word.

Us butch guys at the front appreciate things like that.

The stool beside my bed creaks as BJ lowers himself into it. "I'll check your bandage later today, Hawk. Your head is fine." BJ sounds relieved enough to be me right now. "You'll be prone to headaches while the swelling goes down, and you need to be careful not to get up too quickly. The rapid change in blood pressure can cause dizziness. You also need to be more careful about getting hit in the head. Your boxing career is over." He doesn't crack a full fledged smile - a mere quirking of the caterpillar - in amusement, so I smile for him as I play along instead of reminding him that I'd also been to med-school.

"I had my whole career ahead of me."

"Even the beginning!"

"Now I'll have to use my back-up plan and become a doctor." I want to keep up the lively banter, but I can feel my eyelids drooping. I'll be glad when the constant need for sleep lessens to something I can have a decent conversation through, but concussions are tricky business. I I feel my blankets being tugged over my shoulders. "Goodnight, Gracie…" I murmer, allowing the darkness to take me once more.

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The next time I wake it is dark out. I can feel night pressing in against the thin ply board walls, and each chirping cricket sounds like the velocity whistle of a thousand falling missiles in my ears. We'd had to bug out less than a week before my sojourn to the battalion aide station, so I'm not used to the new location yet. Being secluded in the heart of this Korean forest reminds me almost of camping behind Grandma Pierce's house with cousin Billy, before he tried drowning me in that pond. I have a few more horrors in my head now that make completely peaceful remembrances difficult, and instead of being soothing, the twisted slice of Americana sets my heart pounding and my lungs into overtime.

It isn't until I calm my racing pulse and steady my ragged breath that I hear similar signs of distress from the cot next to me. I search for the Attending Nurse, and glimpse a head of sleek blonde hair parted down the middle. Baker is dead to the world, and appears to be drooling prettily on the shift roster. I lift myself from the bed, waiting patiently for the room to stop spinning before I shift over to the cot of the soldier next to me. I take deep breaths to fight down my sudden motion sickness.

I angle forward, putting my fingers on the scratchy wool blanket just above the man's heart. "Hey. You doing okay?" I give him a quick medical once over. Shell fragments and a broken arm are my guesses. The right arm under the blanked looks remarkably thick, and I am fairly certain I can see the edge of a white abdominal bandage poking out from under the convalescence pajamas the army supplies us with.

I not surprised when he answers with a quick, frantic nod instead of words. His breath is coming in panicked little gasps and the lines around his eyes make me think we need to up his morphine dosage. I stand, fight down my dizziness and travel the fifty mile journey to the foot of the bed. I'm beginning to rethink my position on existing right now. My head is killing me and I'm about to lose track of up, but as usual I'm too stubborn to quit.

By the time I've translated the writhing symbols into words, "Miller," has recovered enough to eye me warily. "Baker!" My voice is far too loud for the confines of my cranium, but it has the desired effect of waking the slumbering nurse and rushing her to my side. "This man is in pain, I'd like to increase Sergeant Miller's morphine, please."

Baker is glaring at me as she pumps the extra opiate into the central IV line. "Captain Pierce, shouldn't you be in bed?" Her usual saccharine temperament is replaced by an icy demeanor.

"Care to join me?" I leer, throwing in a dashing yawn for added effect.

"Colonel Potter left my strict orders to sedate you if you try causing trouble in here like last time." Baker iss sounding remarkably militaristic. Either she'd been spending too much time with Margaret, or she is still angry at me for trying that thing with Nurse Able. They seemed like such close friends - who knew it was bad form to invite them both to share my sleeping bag at the same time? I certainly didn't, but you can't blame a guy for trying.

"Good thing I don't like repeating myself then. Keeps things interesting." Despite her harsh demeanor, her hands are gentle as she leads me back into bed and tucks the woolen blanket once again over my shoulders. My eyes fall on the man in the bed next to me, blue eyes meeting brown for a moment. I get the strong feeling that Miller is attempting to communicate with me, but I fall asleep before I can decipher what he's trying to say.


End file.
